When
building
a Lost in Space robot, more time is spent planning, deducing,
and
making detailed observations about the original robot costume in all
its
versions than is actually spent cutting, drilling, sanding, wiring, and
painting. Thankfully, as a third-generation B9 robot builder, I have
greatly
and gratefully profited from the hard work and dedication of the
previous
generations of robot builders who have so generously and freely shared
their findings with the rest of the B9 building world.

The Lost
in Space robot was a very complicated and multifaceted creation. It
is difficult for any one builder to know everything about every part of
the robot. The greatest obstacle to complete knowledge about the
original
robot is that it no longer exists (For the complete and tragic
history
of the robot, please read the excellent account at Daniel Monroe's Magnetic
Lock website). The original studio blueprints exist and are available,
but the prop builders at Twentieth Century Fox greatly deviated from
the
blueprints when they first began construction of the robot in the
spring
of 1965. Consequently, the blueprints are interesting curiosities
of little practical value for the robot builder. This facts make Dave
Painter's
amazing new robot blueprints all the more remarkable. No robot builder
can dispense with these. Still, like all blueprints, they do not convey
information about the minor details that haunt the B9 builder.

Without
the
original robot before us to measure, calibrate, and slavishly copy,
nearly
all of the successes gained by the B9 robot building guild have been
made
through deduction and second-hand observations and tenuous reverse
engineering
from original publicity photographs dating from 1965 to 1968, from
careful
and repeated viewings of episodes of Lost in Space, and from
screen
grabs made from these episodes.

The
following
are a few observations I have made from original press photographs. I
am
unlikely to be the first builder to notice these details, and in many
cases,
I am merely replicating the conclusions gained from discussions with
robot
builders far more informed than I. Nevertheless, it may be useful to
give
these observations an additional public forum for the benefit of the
novice
robot builder.